Aussies Advance Without Jedinak

13 January 2015

Mile Jedinak's Australia side booked their place in the knockout stages of the Asian Cup by beating Oman 4-0, but had to do so without their captain who has an ankle injury.

Jedinak sustained the knock in the first half of the Socceroos' 4-1 victory against Kuwait in the opening game of the tournament, but continued throughout the 90 minutes, scoring a penalty in the process.

However subsequent swelling saw him miss the win against Oman, which his side won comfortably in his absence thanks to goals from Matt Mackay, Robbie Kruse, Mark Milligan and Tomi Juric.

The six points accumulated so far means that the host nation are safely into the quarter-finals with a game to spare, and will face South Korea on Saturday hoping to avoid defeat to top the group.

Whether Jedinak will be involved in that game though is a different matter, as national team boss Ange Postecoglou revealed he is a serious doubt for the game.

"We'll assess that as we go, he's no certainty for the Korea game," he said. "It's nothing major, nothing that will keep him out for a length of time but obviously with games backing up pretty quickly – from our perspective we made the decision early that he's not available for [the match against Oman].

"Mile's pretty keen to play obviously and if he's anywhere near fit he will play, but at this stage we're just taking it day by day."